On the Heels of Europe’s Devastating Floods, Scientists Warn More Is Yet to Come

A new study finds that slow-moving, low-pressure storms could become 14 times more frequent in Europe over the next century.

Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler was one of the worst hit areas from major floods in Europe.(Sepp Spiegl/ROPI/ZUMA)

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of Climate Desk.

Scientists warn the catastrophic floods that devastated western Europe last week are a glimpse into the future for the region, as climate change fuels more intense, slower-moving storm systems that can hold vast amounts of precipitation.

According to a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, similar slow-moving, low-pressure storms could become 14 times more frequent in Europe over the next century. To date, such weather patterns have been relatively uncommon in the region, but researchers, using detailed climate model simulations, found that storms in the coming decades will have higher peak intensities, longer durations, and will occur more frequently. Slower-moving storms formed in warmer atmospheric temperatures also means more water accumulation—for every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of warming, the atmosphere can hold 7 percent more moisture—increasing the risk of flash flooding.

“This study suggests that changes to extreme storms will be significant and cause an increase in the frequency of devastating flooding across Europe,” Hayley Fowler, co-author of the study and a hydroclimatologist at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, said in a press release.

It’s a wake-up call, Fowler said, to improve emergency warning and management and to make infrastructure more resilient to the effects of climate change.

Two months worth of rain fell in just 24 hours in parts of Germany late last week, causing damages to bridges and roads, rivers to overflow, hillsides to collapse, and homes and cars to be swept away. More than 1,000 rescue operations have been carried out, nearly 200 people have died, 700 have been injured, and many others remain missing as of Monday morning. Parts of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the UK were also affected by the flash flooding.

The new research by Fowler and her colleagues echoes a separate study published in January in the Journal of Climate that found annual and extreme precipitation will increase in most regions of Europe over the next century. 

“Governments across the world have been too slow in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and global warming continues apace,” Fowler said.

As climate impacts worsen around the world—from the floods in Europe to record-breaking wildfires in the American West to severe drought in Madagascar—several countries are acting ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference this November. The European Union and China, two of the world’s biggest economies, recently announced sweeping plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The commitment includes for the EU a globally first-of-its-kind tax on imports from high emitting countries. Environmentalists, however, say it’s still not enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change released a report in March showing that countries have to redouble efforts and submit more ambitious climate action plans in 2021 if the world is going to meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting increases in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

As of March, the world’s collective commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions put us on the path to reducing emissions by less than 1 percent by 2030, compared to 2010 levels. But according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, emissions reductions ranges should really be around 45 percent.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate